Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max scores 33.2 points higher (40.2 vs 7.0) but costs 26× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $122; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.0 | 40.2 | +474.3% Qwen3.8 Max is 5.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $121.78 | $3,172.37 | +2505.0% Qwen3.8 Max is 26× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.35s | 64.17s | +465.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 465.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.07 / $0.20 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Mistral Small 3.2: 474.3% more intelligence, 2505.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 465.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Mistral Small 3.2Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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